1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a robot cleaner and/or autonomous cleaner.
2. Background
In general, robots have been developed for industrial purposes to play a role in factory automation. Recently, application fields of robots have extended, and robots for medical purpose, space navigation robots, etc., and even home robots available that may be used in general houses have been developed.
A representative example of home robots is a robot cleaner. The robot cleaner performs a function of cleaning a floor while traveling by itself in a certain area. For example, a household robot cleaner is configured to suck dust (including foreign substances) on a floor or mop the floor while autonomously traveling inside a house.
Such a robot cleaner generally includes a rechargeable battery and various sensors for avoiding an obstacle during traveling. Thus, the robot cleaner performs a cleaning function while traveling by itself.
In order to allow the autonomous traveling of a robot cleaner to be smoothly performed, it is important to set the entire traveling route and sense obstacles on the traveling route. The robot cleaner may also perform a function of photographing or monitoring the inside of a house using autonomous traveling characteristics thereof. In order to perform the above-described functions, various sensors are used in the robot cleaner, but studies for an optimized design have not been satisfactory yet.
In addition, a typical robot cleaner has a structure in which a suction unit is provided at a lower portion of a cleaner body. However, the structure in which the suction unit is built in the cleaner body has problems in that the suction force of the robot cleaner is decreased, that the separation of a brush roller is impossible, and the like. Accordingly, there has been proposed a structure in which a suction unit is provided to protrude from a cleaner body as disclosed in the following patent documents. However, the structure has many problems to be solved in that the probability of collision between the suction unit and an obstacle is increased, that the suction unit is located in a blind spot of a sensing unit provided in the cleaner body, and the like.
In a structure in which a dust container is coupled to a cleaner body, and a dust container cover is coupled to the dust container, it is important to accurately assemble the components and easily perform the assembly. However, any product having the structure has not been released yet.
In addition, air introduced into a robot cleaner typically passes through a HEPA filter for filtering fine dust before the air is discharged through an exhaust port. In the existing robot cleaners, there is an inconvenience that a portion of a cleaner body should be disassembled so as to replace or clean the HEPA filter.
Various robot cleaners are described in the following documents:
Patent Document 1: U.S. Patent Laid-Open Publication No. US 2013/0305484 A1 (published on Nov. 21, 2013);
Patent Document 2: U.S. Patent Laid-Open Publication No. US 2013/0061420 A1 (published on Mar. 14, 2013); and
Patent Document 3: U.S. Patent Laid-Open Publication No. US 2013/0061417 A1 (published on Mar. 14, 2013).
The above references are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for appropriate teachings of additional or alternative details, features and/or technical background.